The e-book self-publishing world is about to get a little more crowded. With the launch of Pubit! this summer, Barnes & Noble (B&N) has inserted itself directly into the publishing process, joining other retailers like Amazon and Sony. Pubit! is a DIY option for independent publishers and authors to deliver their works digitally through B&N’s site and e-book store.

While this may on the surface seem like great news for the indie publishing crowd, there are definite issues. For example, B&N has been noncommittal up to this point about royalty information, which makes it difficult to know if Pubit! can offer a more attractive deal or not. Another challenge authors and publishers face with an ever growing list of retailers offering self-publishing is how to choose. Which retailer might offer the best audience and reach? Does it make sense to manually publish with every major retailer, one by one, to make sure the playing field is covered despite the time and effort?

In order to make this really work, and work well, we’re going to have to see some consolidation happen. A company that is already running ahead with this is Smashwords. Publish with them and they do the distribution for you to their own site, as well as Kobo, Apple, Amazon, Sony, and even B&N. One site, one process, and one revenue payment makes it simple and transparent. What a concept! Big book retailers like B&N should consider taking a page out of Smashwords success manual.

One of the challenges publishers and authors face with e-books is that no one knows what anyone’s reading. Without eye-catching book jackets displaying the author’s name prominently, the potential for word-of-mouth marketing is virtually lost.

GelaSkins, a company that makes covers for every imaginable mobile device and all the major e-readers, could offer a solution to the branding dilemma of e-books. You can currently buy ready-made GelaSkins for devices, or custom design something unique; the options for design are endless.

An author could create a GelaSkins cover of her latest book and offer it as a giveaway to readers. Or publishers could host a contest, like an iPad draw, and cover the prize with a custom-designed book skin. Authors could also sell skins alongside their books to generate extra revenue. With any of these scenarios, the consumer gets a visual cue as well as protection for their e-reader, and the author and publisher get their names displayed for the world to see.

At about $20 per skin this isn’t exactly an inexpensive option, particularly since e-books still come in below that price. But if e-reading continues to grow like it has, authors and publishers will be looking for creative ways to brand their books. GelaSkins might be a product to do it.

Give us your take: Would you pay $20 for a skin that looks like your favourite book cover?

Image credit: Bookshelf design for Kindle 2 by Colin Thompson

My Kobo Reader arrived this weekend.  And wow, it’s a very nice light reader — almost Star Trek:TNG-like. It makes my Sony PRS-505 Reader seem heavy and cumbersome. The contrast reminds me of the difference between Mac and PC. And at only $150, it’s a great entry-level reader for people new to e-reading technology. It’s not the golden $99 price point yet, but getting there.

The Kobo doesn’t have the wireless capability that comes with a Kindle, but then my Sony doesn’t have wireless either. Plug and load is still a great way to get what you want to have on the go. The Kobo interface is simple and easy to use, with the only disappointment that I can’t load ePubs that I’ve purchased from other stores.

Then the “a-ha” moment arrived. The Kobo isn’t really competing with Sony or any of the other readers on the market. Kobo is going after Amazon. The Kindle reader isn’t really the “thing” that Amazon is interested in selling. Amazon wants to be the source for content — much like iTunes is the source for music and video and Apple happens to sell the device you can play them on. Kobo wants to play too.

Kobo has focused its efforts on content delivery over multiple platforms. You can read your Kobo books on your Blackberry or iPhone, on your desktop computer, on other readers (including the Sony), or now on its own portable reader. So the hardware solution doesn’t need to be perfect; it just needs to be cheap, cheerful, and easy to come by. (Though the Kobo is very cute, with the soft blue rubber navigation button on front and grey quilted back. Plus the 100 pre-loaded free books sure help the open-the-box, get-started ease.)

No, the real money for Kobo will come from selling content that can be used anywhere a consumer wants it. With multiple platforms available for reading what I buy, I’m going to do all my e-book purchasing at Kobo from now on. And that’s just what they want to happen.

P.S. It makes a wonderful Mother’s Day gift.  My 68-year-old mother LOVED it as soon as she touched it. Not sure what she’ll do with her collection of fabric book cover protectors and bookmarks, but she’ll surely find some way to make the Kobo even more homey than it already is.

No question, e-reading recently got a whole lot sexier. Apple’s iPad, the latest e-book reader, is sleek and shiny, and has definitely upped the ante. Not only can you read your favourite book (in colour), you can surf the web, play games, keep up with social networks, display photos, and so much more.

It’s estimated there are some 10 million downloadable book titles available and a dizzying array of readers to enjoy them on. On the first day of its launch, Apple’s iBookstore saw 250,000 downloads alone. Before the iPad, Amazon’s Kindle was the sweetheart of the industry with a whopping 90% of the market share. Sales of the iPad show it’s looking for a takeover, and many wonder if it will sink the Kindle altogether and leave all other readers in its dust.

But if the iPad is being used specifically as a reader, word on the street is that the Kindle, or other single-purpose reader, may be a better option. There’s the matter of eInk, the technology that makes the Kindle screen delightfully easy to read in any light. Take an iPad to the beach on a sunny day and good luck reading the screen. Then there’s the battery. The Kindle has enough juice for up to two weeks of reading. The iPad? Ten hours.

If the iPad hype and sales have shown us anything, it’s that e-books are teetering on the edge of becoming mainstream, and consumers want digital content and are willing to shell out for it. From that perspective, the iPad could become the tipping point for the e-book market, and publishers and authors need to focus on the implications and opportunities that will bring.

Amazon has recently announced two changes to its Kindle publishing program that will be of interest to self-published authors.

1] International authors now have access to Kindle publishing.

Up until last week, only US publishers were able to create and sell Kindle versions of their e-books through the Amazon site. Now the Kindle publishing option is available to publishers worldwide. Payment to all international publishers is made by cheque, direct deposit still being available only to those in the United States.

2] Amazon will soon offer publishers royalties of 70% on e-books.

Yesterday Amazon announced a new program that would allow publishers and authors to earn 70% of their e-book’s list price, net of Amazon’s delivery costs. Currently, publishers earn 35% of list on Kindle books. At first blush, the new program seems generous — which it is — but it’s also Amazon’s way of enticing publishers to play by its rules about pricing and availability. To qualify for the new royalty rate, the e-book must meet certain criteria:

• Have a list price between $2.99 and $9.99
• Be priced 20% below the lowest physical book price
• Be made available for sale “in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights”
• Participate in a bundle of features, including text-to-speech
• “Be offered at or below price parity with competition”

Both the old and new royalty programs will exist side-by-side and publishers will be able to choose which one they wish to participate in. The new program comes into effect on June 30, 2010. Note: the 70% royalty option will initially be available to US publishers only.

Bowker, the agency that administer ISBNs in the United States, has cut its prices on ISBNs blocks. A block of 10 ISBNs is now $250 instead of $400.

The Bowker website states that the price cut was made in response to publishers requiring so many more ISBNs because of multiple formats and editions. Many books are now published not only in hard cover and soft cover, but in a wide variety of e-book formats as well.

Bowker recommends a different identifier for each e-book format, so that your Kindle edition, for example, would have a different ISBN than the Sony Reader edition. There has been heated debate about this practice in the industry. Many small and independent publishers say they simply can’t afford to use so many ISBNs for each title, and that a single ISBN for all e-book formats is appropriate.

Others remain firm in their opinion that different numbers for each format is the best way to help sales channels and consumers know what they’re getting. Industry consultant Laura Dawson, who runs a weekly Twitter chat about ISBNs, states it succinctly:

ISBNs are for saying “this one is not that one”.

So which way should a self-published author go? We recommend giving each format a different number. A block of 10 ISBNs, which now costs just $250, should be enough to handle all the different versions of a single first edition title. It’s a worthwhile investment to keep confusion to a minimum.

Amazon today unveiled a new addition to its Kindle line of e-reading devices, the Kindle DX. The most notable feature of the DX is its larger screen size — nearly 10″ on the diagonal versus the Kindle’s 6″ screen.

Amazon is touting the device as a comfortable reader for newspapers and text books, as well as e-books. Three major US newspapers — the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Washington Post — have signed on to offer subscriptions at reduced prices.

The Kindle DX is priced at $489, $130 more than the Kindle. And yet, apart from the larger screen size, there’s not much more to love. It’s still a black-and-white display. There’s still no ePub or WiFi support.

Early reactions to the release of the DX has been lukewarm at best. Here’s at peek at some of the commentary from the publishing world circulating on Twitter this morning:

SmartBitches: Dear Amazon: please, keep it coming. I’m enjoying this way too much. I can has moar fail plz? Kthxbye!” #dud #amazonfail

paperhaus: Wondering why Amazon bothered with Kindle 2 at all. It’s not like they cooked up a 8.5×11 screen in 2 months.

ljndawson: $489 Kindle with 16 shades of grey and no discounts on subscriptions if you’re in the paper’s area = lead balloon. #dud

wmacphail: The Kindle needs to be WAY cheaper. Apple is going to kick this thing’s ass.

sarahw: Not getting over the $489 price tag. In a recession. Two months after Kindle 2 unveiled. Like reissuing bare-bones DVD w/ one or 2 extras.

kirkbiglione: No ePub, no WiFi. Kindle closed system continues and it won’t hurt Amazon one bit.

Only time will tell whether consumers agree and bypass the DX, or whether the large screen size will prove an enticement.

Following this week’s announcement that Amazon had acquired Lexcycle, makers of the Stanza e-reader app, industry watchers have weighed in with their perspectives. Here are three good commentaries on what the acquisition means for publishing:

Kassia Krozser remarks that the Lexcycle acquisition is not “the end of the world as we know it,” but neither is it great news for publishers and readers.

Consumers are slowly being locked into a single vendor. Publishers are being backed into Amazon’s corner. Yet, yet, yet, I ask again: where are the publishing initiatives, the fresh thinking, to protect the free market?

BookNet Canada offers a Canadian perspective on the deal and suggest three actions publishers can take to keep Amazon from a market stranglehold.

This market is developing at a fevered rate. If you want to help shape the forces that are going to in turn, influence the way you create, sell and acquire books in the future, then now is the time.

Mike Shatzkin believes the real issues brought to light by the deal are pricing and making books discoverable by readers. He calls for the big publishers to come together to develop an online bookstore of their own.

The current effort by several general trade publishers to drive traffic to their own house-branded web sites is misguided and doomed. But Amazon (and Shelfari, GoodReads, LibraryThing, and our new entrant, Filedby.com) have demonstrated that sites with information across the trade book spectrum have real consumer appeal.

Amazon has extended the reaches of its empire once again.

Late yesterday afternoon, news broke that Amazon had acquired Lexcycle, makers of Stanza, a popular e-reader application for the iPhone. Within minutes of the announcement being picked up in the New York Times, the Twittersphere was buzzing with speculation.

So far, what’s known is that Amazon has acquired Lexcycle. And … well, that’s all that’s known for sure right now. No word on the purchase price. More importantly, there remain a lot of unanswered questions as to what this acquisition will mean for the emerging e-book market.

Stanza is one of the most popular e-reader applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. With a user base of more than 1.3 million, the app outstrips Amazon’s Kindle in market penetration. Last month, Amazon launched a Kindle app for the iPhone, allowing Kindle owners to also read books on their mobile device. However, like the Kindle itself, the app was only available in the United States. Now, with the acquisition of Stanza, Amazon has instant access to a worldwide mobile user base.

The sticky question is what Amazon will do with the Stanza software. To date, Stanza has offered support for open e-book formats. The application reads ePub files (the book format that the publishing industry has been to trying to standardize around) and files not protected with DRM technology.

Amazon, on the other hand, has been building a supply chain around its own proprietary Kindle format. Kindle books can only be read on a Kindle device or with the iPhone Kindle app. So it seems unlikely Amazon will allow Stanza’s continued support of open formats.

Here’s a summary of some of the commentary now circulating:

• Michael Cairns points out that now is the time for the publishing industry to get behind a common e-book standard. If publishers don’t act now while the e-book market is still in its infancy, they will become increasingly powerless against retail behemoths like Amazon.
• Mike Cane provides some compelling analysis on why the acquisition is bad, bad news for the industry.
• Paul Biba shares some thoughts on the acquisition’s negative implications for the “little guy.”
• Karen Templar summarizes some of the big questions the industry now faces.

E-books are gaining in popularity, but there are still some issues that hold them back from widespread pick-up. File format wars are one of them.

If you want to read an e-book, you first have to decide which reading device you’ll commit to: your PC, a Kindle, your iPhone, a Sony Reader? Books available for one device are not always available on another, and if you want to switch devices at a later date you may lose all your books.

As a publisher, you must decide which e-book formats you should invest money in producing: one, some, all? Which has the bigger audience? Who will be around for the long-term?

In the 1990s, the dizzying array of e-book formats confused the market and hobbled the industry’s success. Today, to avoid a repeat of history, a consortium of publishers, booksellers, authors, and software publishers are calling for the book industry to rally around a single file format. That rally point is ePub, a free and open digital book format based on XHTML. “Open” means the files are not protected with DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology, and can be freely read by any hardware or software with ePub capability.

A single unlocked file format makes life easier for everyone. With an ePub standard in place, you (as the publisher) only need to create a single digital version of your e-books, saving you time, money, and headaches. Readers can be assured of having access to all the e-books they want on whatever device they choose, and can even switch between different devices without losing access to their library.

The ePub format, launched in late 2007, is still relatively new but gaining good momentum. Though there’s still a long way to go yet, some believe that 2009 will be the year ePub truly becomes the industry standard.

The ePub Blog is a good resource for more information. It includes a list of devices that can read ePub files, as well as places you can download ePub books.